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Expectation is always the killer when the World Cup swings around. For England it is, at least, though the near-impossible task of escaping a group that features heavy-hitters Italy and Uruguay means that, for once, hopes for success at the summer's tournament are sensibly muted. On the back of a lacklustre showing with UEFA Euro 2012 - one of the few blots on the otherwise remarkable reputation EA Sports' football series has built up over the past generation - expectations are understandably dim for FIFA's next big ticket tie-in, too. Charging a premium amount for the FIFA 12 tie-in was one thing - only bothering to licence half the teams and not tinkering with the fundamentals in any way was quite another.2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil - that's the official, slightly mealy-mouthed title that would no doubt have Alan Smith turning his face inside out during any attempt to enunciate it - is going for a different approach. It's a full-priced boxed product, and one that's skipping the new generation of consoles, choosing to stick to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. These are hardly going to be the most popular of decisions, but credit where it's due: EA is going out of its way to justify them, and doing as much as you could reasonably expect to make this game earn its full-fat price tag.
There's a laundry list of features being introduced to help state EA's case and, unlike UEFA Euro 2012, the improvements reach right down to the core mechanics. The introductions are topical: close control has been improved, the deft touches of potential tournament poster-boy Neymar the filter through which tweaks have been made. In hand, the improvements are noticeable but slight - the fluidity of animation and control of the Xbox One and PS4 versions of FIFA 14 is approached, if understandably not quite fully reached, but there's still a marked improvement over the PS3 and Xbox 360 iterations.
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